


dancing, or not

by stag_von_simp



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Dancing, F/M, Female Robin - Freeform, Fluff, No Beta, Robin Twins AU, Robin is female and Reflet is male, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:47:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22982722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stag_von_simp/pseuds/stag_von_simp
Summary: chrom is sick, but his illness falls at an inconvenient time, and he is nothing if not stubborn.  robin is left to be his crutch, and she does so more than willingly.
Relationships: Chrom/My Unit | Reflet | Robin, Tharja & My Unit | Reflet | Robin
Kudos: 24





	dancing, or not

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: i have never played fe awakening, i just know the characters from reading the supports on the wiki and playing fire emblem heroes. also...i haven't so much as read this through for grammar errors, oops. despite all that, i hope you enjoy this!! chrom owns my entire heart :)
> 
> (and for the sake of this fic, lucina doesn't exist, and emmeryn doesn't, either. just be warned!!)

Robin loiters by the entrance to the ballroom that she’s already determined to loathe, scratching her sweat-sponged fingers against the silken burst of her skirt. The dress she’s trapped in brushes the ground with every step, and the sleeves sag; her shoulders are too thin to support them, and she chooses to fiddle with them a moment later, and she hates how much she cares.

At least the deep purple of the fabric inks her hair from mousy white to creamy, she thinks, but still, standing here, she mourns her dignity and wishes for a cloak to deflect the sunlight stabbing at her exposed shoulders. She can practically feel a sunburn branding her skin.

And she hates it, absolutely.

Tharja swishes by her, smiling in her wicked way. Robin’s hate seizes into sharp anger. Tharja’s dress is a storm cloud, glaring black and puffy, and she looks stunning in it. She will be attending the ball with Robin’s brother; she hates that, too. 

“Waiting for your boyfriend, are you?” Tharja scoffs. “I doubt he’s coming. Don’t weep to me or my dear Reflet when you find yourself bare and alone.”

“Why wouldn’t he come?” Robin wonders, genuinely curious. “It’s a ball for his sake. If he doesn’t show up, I’m turning around and leaving.”

Tharja laughs. “He’s sick,” she croons, nearly singing. Robin’s face folds into a cold scowl. “Your manly thing has fallen sick. Snotting all over creation, hacking every inhale right out, you know.  _ Really  _ sick.”

She’s the sick one, Tharja, scouring joy from the lie--if it’s a lie at all. The vacuum gaping open in the pit of Robin’s stomach convinces her otherwise.

“Is  _ snotting _ a technical term?” she leers in response. Tharja huffs a laugh.

“For what Chrom is doing, yes. It’s the most accurate way to describe it, truthfully.”

“And how would you know this? Are you really spending that much time around Chrom? And what happened to loving Reflet so much you couldn’t even see other men, hmm?”

“Don’t be so jealous,” Tharja cackles. “It’s Reflet who relayed the info to me, and begged me to hide it from you. But what can I say? It’s not a relationship if there’s not a teensy bit of healthy deceit.”

Robin’s lips hoop. “You’re disgusting, Tharja. But if what you’re saying is the truth...then I’m grateful he didn’t come and infect an entire ballroom--”

Tharja clips her comment short with a triumph burble--no, a  _ giggle,  _ a dumbfounded Robin identifies too late. “Speak of the devil himself,” she purrs. Robin’s spine is nipped with a sudden pinch of cold. “I’ll be tracking down your brother, little one. And as for you...have fun learning the true meaning of  _ snotting _ .”

And then Tharja abandons her, ice lapping at her shoulders where sunburn had feasted before. Robin, knowing full well who must be marching up the path, spins slowly, lip wedged beneath her teeth.

Sure enough, Chrom staggers up to her, fully decked in crown and cape, a corsage spraying from his lapel. Even from yards away, the smolder of color in his cheeks is stark and startling. He’s smiling with thin lips, cleansed of color, and his eyelids are wilted low and heavy over his eyes, which have never seemed to boil more blue.

“Chrom,” she gusts out. She doesn’t mean to skid back, but she does.

Chrom offers his hand; his fingers shake. Robin blanches away from it, bolstered back against her will. “Oh,” he rasps, voice thin as his smile. “Would you rather link arms?”

“No,” she hears herself mumble. “I’d much rather not touch you at all.”

When she faces him, all she can see is the heat streaming through his cheeks, red as the sunlight bruising her shoulders now that the surprise has died down. 

Chrom’s face is scrunched; he looks wounded. “Why not?”

Robin’s expression crumples. “You’re obviously sick,” she points out. “Why’d you even show up? To spread your bacteria?”

“No, I’m supposed to be here, and I do what I’m supposed to.”

Robin snorts. “Since when?”

“Since forever. Come on, I’m reliable,” he pants. “And I’m not that sick. If you want, when we dance, I can hold my breath so as not to blow my germs all over you.”

“That’s not--” This time she zips it short herself, whipping her head in defeat. “Chrom. Bacteria cling to skin, too.  _ Hands. _ ”

Chrom sighs--then claps a hand over his mouth, eyes inflating. Slowly, he lets the hand grope back to his side. Robin sees him clenching his cape and chooses not to comment. “Sorry,” he grumbles. “Look. You can wash your hands really well when we’re done. But we have to go in there and we have to bring a smile to every face in the house, understood? That’s what they want from us, angel.”

_ Angel.  _ Robin’s heart jumps, just enough for her to surrender her hand to his. Her fingers knit through his until they’re both safe--even if Chrom looks ready to slump against her shoulder like a boulder at the bottom of a hill with no gravity to cheer it on.

“Fine,” she sighs. “Let’s just go, baby. But when you’re done, I’m rubbing soap into my palms until it seeps right through my skin.”

“Fair enough,” he says, voice shuddering around that final word. He sweeps inside, cape thumping the floor and tickling Robin’s ankle, just sneaking free from the hem of her gown that she hates just slightly less now. “You look beautiful,” Chrom whispers to her, and the sincerity hugging the remark squeezes Robin, too, until her ribs may pop and her heart may tumble right out of her chest.

As soon as they bow through the entrance, all eyes in the room crash to them, and Robin stiffens, joints slamming shut under lock and key, entire being curling in. She hangs her head with every intention to shrug off the attention; Chrom, meanwhile, gasps it in, letting it spritz his insides with fragrant satisfaction. He hurls up a hand and waves wildly.

“Welcome to the party, everyone,” he calls. “A thousand thanks to each of you for attending today.” As applause shrieks through the room, Chrom plugs back a cough with the knuckles of the hand Robin isn’t cradling. She rubs circles into the back of it, soothing the ridges where his veins bristle beneath the skin, standing to attention.

“Don’t shout,” she warns. “You’ll be raw in minutes if you do.”

“It’s fine,” he croaks in response. “I’d be raw anyway. Might as well make the most of my throat while it’s still functioning, right?”

“Chrom. Now is hardly the time to be peppy and optimistic. You have to think it through. And...you really don’t look good. You made your appearance, you can leave.”

“I’m fine,” but he isn’t. “There are dignitaries and things here. People who want to talk to a representative from Ylisse. And we don’t want Lissa being the only one here to hear them out and see them off, now do we? No way.”

He sounds so drowsy--so  _ hoarse _ \--Robin’s stomach squirms. Every instinct in her blares with urgency, demanding she yank control of Chrom by the reins and whisk him off to bed for the next week.

Instead, she lets him whirl her into a dance. There’s a small ensemble (a violin, trilling above it all, accompanied by what may be a cello and what’s definitely a piano) huddled in a corner, and the music they’re crafting escalates. Robin pretends to miss the way Chrom winces at the noise. 

“Headache?” she asks, and concern weaves into every word, straining.

Chrom is clearly chaining back a sigh. “No. Nothing at all. I just...didn’t know a singular violin could be so  _ loud _ .”

Nonetheless, Robin (conveniently, her arms are already looped around his neck) herds him closer to her, and his head slowly smacks her shoulder and cuddles in.

At this point, Robin forgets to heed the bacteria leaping off of him and onto her. She forgets everything but keeping him comfortable. Honestly, it’s nearly valiant of him to see the ball and Ylisse’s fate as more vital than even his health, which is clearly in critical condition. Even if, in Robin’s eyes, it’s as stupid as it is brave. Just like the Chrom she adores so much, she thinks, just like the Chrom she could hold forever, the one she could carry through life, the one whose feet should never have to drag the ground--

A snore sniffs through her reverie; she glances down, in shock, and Chrom isn’t even swaying anymore. He’s molded against her perfectly. Sweat melts off of his face, splashing her neck until she’s wet and chilled by it, and he’s dozing.

Robin chuckles softly, strapping one of her arms against his waist while keeping the other propped on his shoulder. She combs her fingers down his back, and his snores lull her into a stupor of her own. Haze blankets her mind, a happy sort of bubble, caging her into the place she loves the most: right against him, even if he’s wheezing in his sleep, and heat from his forehead is probably scarring her naked shoulder. She couldn’t care less.

From across the ballroom--a minute ago, she was just another cog whistling in the machination or the mess, however the ballroom could be described--Tharja glitters in Robin’s periphery. She seems to be enjoying Reflet’s touch a bit too much, but she’s able to pry her focus away from him just long enough to shoot Robin what may be a mocking smirk or a warm smile. With Tharja, even warmth is coated with ice.

So Robin musters a smile in return--

Only for the moment to be diced in half by the sharp sound of a throat being cleared. Robin’s attention jerks back to where it should be: right in front of her. A representative from a neighboring kingdom she’s not quite able to identify hovers only feet away. Chrom sleeps on, heavy against her, unaware of the glare he’s being crystallized in.

“Chrom, is it?” the representative creaks. Her eyes are narrowed, her nose rumpled with disdain. “I’m here regarding business in--”   
“One moment, please,” springs, unbidden, from Robin’s tongue. “The heir is busy. With me. We’re busy. We only need a second. He’ll be right with you.”

“Busy? Dancing? He nearly looks like he’s napping,” the woman retorts, disdainful as ever...although a laugh is now bobbing in Robin’s throat at the irony, sick as it is. 

Nonetheless, the woman steps away, allowing Robin the moment she needs to jostle Chrom until his eyelids flutter, even if doing so frees a wave of simmering guilt in her chest.

“Chrom,” she hisses, “one of those dignitaries you mentioned really  _ does _ want to talk.”

Chrom pins her in place with bleary eyes, their blue now muffled by drowsiness, checkered through by bloodshot vines. Guilt throbs in her like a broken bone left to fester too long. “Can’t Lissa deal with it?” he slurs.

“No,” she says, her mind coursing through plans as fast as ever. Finally, it comes to her, a flame snapping aglow at a fingertip, fueled only by her desperation. “But I can.”

“Robin, you don’t have to,” he whines, then coughs.

“I’m willing,” she insists. “More than willing. I mean, chances are, when you’re exalt for real, I’ll be your wife, and we’ll rule together. These things will be every bit my responsibility, too. Best I begin practicing now.” Even uttering it aloud turns her heart into a hammer. She imagines craters bitten into her every rib; it’s perfectly possible that the devastation is real.

Chrom hefts himself back up to his posture, using her to boost himself up. The action alone seems to drain him entirely. “True. Th-Thank you, Robin.” Every word emerges in its own burst; he’s seething, gasping, panting. “I really don’t feel great.”

“Really? You were hiding that expertly, what with falling asleep mid-dance, on your feet and all,” Robin drawls, then prods a kiss against his collarbone and beckons for Lissa, breathing hushed commands to her a little frantically to cart her brother back to bed and to give the poor man every herbal remedy she can dig up from the garden.

Lissa obliges with all the passion Robin had hoped for, leaving her to stroll up to the dignitary, cram in an apology and an offer of tea and a quieter setting to meet. The woman graciously accepts, and Robin can’t help but thinking,  _ maybe I really do have a knack for this. Maybe I really could do this in Chrom’s steed for the rest of my life. _

_ Maybe I really will. _

The concept keeps her beaming through the entire meeting.


End file.
